Curating with Care: The Praxis of Relational Curation with Asian Diasporic and Indigenous Contemporary Artists

NEW DIRECTIONS IN STUDIES OF WOMEN, GENDER, AND SEXUALITY

AY 2023–2024: ART AND POLITICS IN THE ASIAN DIASPORA

SPEAKER: Thea Quiray Tagle, Brown University

This lecture considers the challenges and possibilities of working ethically and politically with Asian diasporic and Indigenous artists, by deploying a curatorial praxis grounded in the theories and methods of ethnic studies, queer and feminist studies, and social practice art. Drawing from examples from over a decade of collaborating with artists in the US West Coast, New York, and the Philippines, Dr. Quiray Tagle proposes relational curation as a radical practice of caring with and for artists that interrupts the neoliberal co-optation of “curatorial activism” and “decolonizing the arts” by mainstream art institutions and funders. By adopting new strategies and tactics, curators and engaged scholars can shift their own relations to their research and work, in the service of communities and individuals most impacted by the violence of neoliberal structures and political regimes in the US and across the Pacific.

About the Speaker

Thea Quiray Tagle, PhD is a Filipinx femme curator, writer, and transdisciplinary scholar whose research broadly investigates photography, socially engaged art and site-specific performance; visual cultures of violence and waste; urban planning and the environment; and grassroots responses to political crises and ecological collapse in and across the Pacific. She was the Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Associate in Asian American Studies at UIUC from 2015-2016 and earned a PhD in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego. Her writing has been published in a variety of outlets including American Quarterly, Verge: Studies in Global Asias, Hyperallergic, and BOMB Magazine. Dr. Quiray Tagle is the Associate Curator of the Bell Gallery and Brown Arts Institute (BAI) at Brown University.